With the increased dependence upon consumer electronics, most homes and businesses have incompatible systems controlled through many incompatible means. For example, infrared signals are used between a remote control and a stereo or television, physical wiring as well as infrared are used for activation or deactivation of alarm systems, radio frequency and physical wiring are used for doorbells, and existing electrical household wiring is used for X-10. The incompatibility of these systems, which prevents any one control or input device from operating all consumer electronic devices or even one of a differing protocol. For example, one could not play a music file from a computer by pressing the doorbell. Additionally, one cannot start a compact disc playing by flipping a light switch.
As more vendors provide more and more consumer electronic devices, the need to have a universal means for controlling such appliances becomes ever increasing. Attempts have been made to address this problem for specific protocols, but nothing exists to be able to globally control consumer electronic devices in the entire household. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,198,408 is directed to an apparatus for controlling electrical appliances by means of a command signal transmitted by a particular remote control transmitter. However, this reference is limited to using the specific remote controls limited to an infrared signal and specialized power adapters for merely controlling the power supply to and from the consumer electronic device. This reference does not provide for control functionality other than affecting the electrical power supplied to a particular device.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,229,433 is directed toward an appliance control system primarily based upon a protocol marketed under the trademark X-10®. This allows for the controlling of a particular electronic appliance through the electrical wiring of a home. However, this reference requires significant investment in the control units. Additionally, this invention is restricted to the X-10 protocol. The specific protocol requires data pulses or serial output bursts in order to control the specific units rather than allowing for the universal control system that would cross various protocols.
Accordingly, it is the object of this invention to provide for a universal control system able to control residential, commercial or industrial electronic devices regardless of any specific protocol.
Another object of this invention is to allow for control mechanism of one system to be able to actuate a consumer electronic device operating on another system.